


Right Here

by Happy9450



Category: The Newsroom
Genre: Election Night 2012, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2324150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy9450/pseuds/Happy9450
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Still chewing on some of the aspects of the story that Sorkin left a little thin.  Like my other one-offs, this one has references to events explored in "The Marvelous Magical McAvoy's."</p>
    </blockquote>





	Right Here

**Author's Note:**

> Still chewing on some of the aspects of the story that Sorkin left a little thin. Like my other one-offs, this one has references to events explored in "The Marvelous Magical McAvoy's."

"I was a good guy." 

It's all she can do not to agree with him. Or argue with him about the times that he wasn't a good guy and did things like bring in Brian Brenner to punish her. But she had to withhold all emotion. That's the one thing that Will McAvoy cannot stand, the one thing that might drive him to the act that was necessary to set her plan in motion. 

"I was a good guy." 

He said it with more conviction, but somehow less belief in himself. She can feel him looking at her, even if her head is too far down to see him. She can feel him asking for something. She's not sure what, but again she withholds everything. She feels him snap, pull back, close up, give up, say a silent "fuck you, Mac." 

And then, she hears him speak. "You're fired . . . end of the broadcast. Please don't tell anyone."

A knife of pure agony sliced through her and then she was numb. She could do this. She would do this. She blinked and was surprised to find that she was still breathing. It was, she thought, the only way to save him, save something of his career. 

"I won't," she heard herself saying, amazed that she could speak. 

He started out the door just as Tess came to get her. No time to think. No time to feel. A small blessing. 

She stood beside Charlie and Will and tried to focus on what Don and Maggie were saying. It was something about General Patraeus resigning and his mistress making harassing calls to . . . . She simply couldn't follow it. She was too busy controlling her shaking limbs and making herself continue to breathe in and out. In and out. This was ACN's national election coverage, and after Genoa, arguably the most important broadcast in the history of the cable news franchise. She was, as Will had reminded her earlier, the traffic cop at the center of the whole operation. She could not . . . would not . . . have a repeat of the breakdown she'd suffered the morning she'd learned about Will and Nina.

But it was hard. Possibly the hardest thing she had ever done. They were back on the air. She in the control room, wearing the headset, hearing Will tell Taylor to take him apart. He staring into camera one, into her eyes, seething with anger and . . . hurting . . . . She could see he was hurting, that behind the fury was pain. But seeing him look at her like that . . . so angry . . . so cold. It was a look that she saw in her nightmares, in the worst of her nightmares, the one that always began after she'd told him about Brian, the one where he's leaving her . . . . before . . . . 

Stop this, she commanded herself harshly. She could see that her hands were trembling. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Herb turning his head away hastily with a worried look on his face. I can't fall apart, she thought. Not until this is over and I can get away from here, get home. She began to recite lines from the poem in her mind.

Yet if we are bold,   
love strikes away the chains of fear   
from our souls.   
We are weaned from our timidity   
In the flush of love's light   
we dare be brave.

She could do this. She would do this. Do this for him. When she was gone from ACN, she would call in every favor she was owed . . . every connection that she had . . . in print and broadcast media to get this story out. She'd get Coop or Wolf to give her an interview on CNN. She would make it her mission in life to let the world know that Will McAvoy had not had any involvement with the development or vetting of the Genoa story, and that he had now taken complete control of News Night and was holding her accountable for her mistakes. She would save his career and restore the public's confidence in him. And then . . . . well, she didn't know what she would do then. All she knew was that she couldn't let her thoughts go there now.

She looked down to where she'd clasped her shaking hands together. She thought of the Xanax in her desk drawer but realized that she couldn't risk taking one, or even a half of one, in her exhausted state. She didn't need to add having herself collapse onto the floor of the control room in a drugged stupor to the rest of the burdens Will was carrying tonight. She needed to do her part to make this the best election coverage ACN had ever broadcast. For Charlie . . . for Will . . . for Sloan . . . for Jim . . . for Elliot, and for the rest . . . . 

Yet if we are bold,   
love strikes away the chains of fear   
from our souls. 

She could do this. She would do this.

And so, she threw herself into producing the News Night election coverage, the way she had thrown herself into producing and reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan and Islamabad, the way she had saved herself before . . . after she lost . . . everything. It was the only way she knew how to save herself. She argued like Mac on the Todd Akin for General Patraeus trade. She got things organized and running smoothly. She could tell by the way the staff were responding to her that it was working. They noticed only her exhaustion and not that she was already dead inside.

She would never know what propelled her into the Hair and Make-up room after she heard Will turn the desk over to Elliot and Sloan. Maybe it was seeing Billy's face after Jim responded, "you did," to his question about who had put ideas of honor and loyalty into the heads of the senior staff. Her wonderful staff who had just informed Will that they all intended to resign if Leona accepted his, Charlie's and Mac's resignations. She needed to get to Mrs. Lansing and tell her that there was no longer any need to act on the resignations because Will had fired her and that would be enough. But she didn't get a long enough break, and besides, she couldn't walk into the party on the 44th Floor looking the way she did, like something the cat dragged in after toying with it for several hours. 

For a fleeting moment as she entered the room where Will sat watching Elliot give election returns, she contemplated telling him what she had come back to ACN to say. She'd just get it out and weather the anger ("What the fuck am I supposed to do with that information, Mac?" "Why the hell did you tell me now, after all these years?" Or if he were infuriated enough, "Are you sure it wasn't Brenner's?"). She would take whatever he said in silence, and then, they would never have to speak again. But, no. Whatever his reaction, she was sure that the news would be upsetting to him. She couldn't make a disclosure like that during a broadcast. If nothing else, she was still Will's EP. 

So, instead, she found herself apologizing for saying that the reason he didn't sack her sooner was vanity, fear that he would look bad. That was something, of course, that she hadn't actually believed for even an instant. But saying it had gotten what she wanted . . . not wanted . . . never wanted . . . needed . . . to save him, and maybe the apology would help her deal with the memory of the pain on his face. 

If only she had just stopped there.

Now, she stood in the control room reeling from the revelation that the ring had been a prop in an elaborate hoax, and that Will had denied that he ever cared . . . ever loved her . . . enough to want to marry her. She couldn't . . . wouldn't . . . let this evening end with her having lost faith in everything she thought they had once had together. It just couldn't be true. She had been with him in Nebraska when he had stood at his mother's grave and finally confessed the details of his childhood . . . when he had said that she was the only thing that made life bearable and the only person he had ever truly loved. Now, in an instant, he'd denied it all. Or had he? 

When they sent the coverage back to D.C., Mac retreated to the old empty editing bay she used when she needed to escape. Had he denied loving her? She replayed the conversation in her head. She'd said that she didn't understand how he could have been serious enough to buy a ring and yet refuse to read her emails or take her calls. And, he'd said that the ring was a "practical joke." Was that the same as denying . . . . Oh shit! Stop this, she commanded herself. It didn't matter. She loved him, and she was going to do whatever she could to save his career. When Reese got back with his Rockette, she'd find him and convince him that the firing of News Night's EP by the Managing Editor plus the settlement with Dantana was enough, and he should keep Will and Charlie. 

She could do this. 

Emerging from the dark room, lost in her thoughts, she plowed right into Herb.

"Oh, Mac! Are you okay?"

"Yes, fine."

"Will's looking for you."

"What does he want?"

"Don't know. He didn't say."

"Where is he?"

"Don't know that either. Looking for you, I guess."

"Okay. Thanks." She rubbed her forehead where the headache was building. What more could Will possibly want to say? Hadn't they said it all? She wanted to run. Was Will coming to tell her that he's decided to ask Nina to marry him? That seemed ridiculous even to her sleep deprived brain, but it was the worst thing that she could imagine. If that happens, they just might find her body floating in the Thames, she thought ruefully. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she recognized that the pain associated with the thought of Will committing irrevocably to someone else was an indication that she had not yet completely banished all hope of a different outcome than the one that was unfolding. Ah, well, plenty of time in the future to work on giving up illusions.

In the present, she needed to ready herself to talk to Will. She felt the exhaustion weakening her. She knew her grip on her emotions was slipping with every second that passed. At some point, the reality that all of this . . . ACN . . . Will . . . her job . . . her life . . . were gone (again) and her body would just take over and the pounding heartbeat, the sweating and shivering would begin. She wanted to run. Run far far away. 

But she walked briskly toward the studio. Herb didn't know where Will was, and she wasn't going to chase after him. She'd just go to the news desk to which he'd have to return eventually and wait there. She sat and began doodling on a pad that someone had left behind at the break. Maybe Will wanted to talk about business. She could take talking to him if it was something about the rest of the broadcast. But another unpleasant personal interaction with Will McAvoy . . . . She wasn't at all sure that she could get through it without falling completely to pieces. Certainly, it was the last thing she wanted. 

Want . . . the word hung in her mind as she waited. She wanted . . . . She felt like one giant aching want. She wanted . . . . Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away. If she let herself continue to think like this she would start to shake even before Will arrived, and all hope of control would be lost. But her mind refused to be disciplined. She wanted Billy. She wanted Billy, even if it was only for one last time. She wanted Billy's arms around her. She wanted his lips on hers. 

Looking at her trembling hands, MacKenzie brought the poem back to mind.

And suddenly we see   
love costs all we are   
and will ever be. 

Too bloody right, Maya, she thought.

And then, an instant later, he was there, walking into the bull pen, his back to her, talking to Tess. Now, he was standing, still facing away from her, with his arms outstretched.

"Has anyone seen Mac?"

love costs all we are   
and will ever be.   
Yet it is only love   
which sets us free.

She could do this. Whatever it was he wanted to say to her, she would hear it. Taking a deep calming breath, she called out, "I'm right here."

I've always been right here.


End file.
